


Get Out of Dodge

by thatdamnuchiha



Series: In the Company of Elves [24]
Category: Naruto, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Blacksmith Haruno Sakura, Body Dysphoria, Developing Relationship, Elf Sakura, Eventual Fluff, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Haruno Sakura Deserves Better, Haruno Sakura Has Issues, Haruno Sakura Has Panic Attacks, Haruno Sakura Needs a Hug, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Failure, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Torture, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, POV Haruno Sakura, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Reincarnation, Sakura has no memories of the elleth's life before she gets thrown in, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Spoiler: she was glorfindel's fangirl, Trauma, White-Haired Haruno Sakura, and a fangirl, and also causes many misunderstandings, in which Sakura struggles to figure things out, in which everyone has to adjust, in which the original elleth was a spoilt kid, seriously you should know what I'm like by now, some always slips in, which is fun for everyone...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:48:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29707053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamnuchiha/pseuds/thatdamnuchiha
Summary: get out of Dodge– (US, idiomatic) To leave, especially to leave a difficult or dangerous environment with all possible haste.In which Haruno Sakura is ready to die to escape her captors, and she does.Then she wakes up in a body which isn’t hers, and is left to deal with the aftermath of the previous tenant’s actions, her own torture at the hands of her captors and all the unseen scars they’ve left upon her, as well as figuring out what exactly she wants to do with this apparent second life she has been granted.
Relationships: Glorfindel (Tolkien) & Haruno Sakura, Glorfindel (Tolkien) & Original Character(s), Glorfindel (Tolkien)/Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura & Original Female Character(s), Haruno Sakura & Original Male Character(s)
Series: In the Company of Elves [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1430875
Comments: 14
Kudos: 97





	1. The End is Where We Begin

**Author's Note:**

> AN 1: Pretty sure I've mentioned before that my impulse control when it comes to writing new works is pretty poor, but I do post them up in part to try and motivate me to complete them because otherwise they sit there and stew for a long while and get left unfinished and I lose motivation on them which can be finicky at times, so preferably no complaints about how many works I have up - since I aspire to complete them all someday likely far, far into the future.
> 
> AN 2: There may be incidents of graphic violence (most likely pertaining to Sakura's history if I end up putting snapshots in) but I'll be trying to update as I go, ergo the rating of this work may change in the future after I've written a set amount of this work here.
> 
> AN 3: Mostly I'll likely be focusing more on the family relationships then the romantic one, meaning this work has been marked as 'Gen' for the time being, but if my focus drifts that will be updated to. There will be eventual Glorfindel/Sakura though it's not the main focus here.
> 
> AN 4: I need sleep.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> tw: suicide, PTSD, injury.

She could taste the blood on her tongue, sharp and coppery as it was, even as she heaved for breath there atop the plinth she had been chained to.

Chakra pulsed in her forehead, a dull throb she had never been able to rid herself of since the day she had decided to investigate what nature chakra would do when combined with her seal. She had just been hoping to earn some form of sage mode to better her healing abilities and combat options. She hadn’t striven to accidentally make herself something of an immortal, forever to regenerate from the wounds inflicted upon her without wearing out her skin cells and making her age. Rather, the influx of nature energy had kept her body somehow repairing itself without wearing it out – keeping her in the state which she had been in when she had acquired her botched seal.

It wasn’t perfect immortality though, and Sakura was so very glad for that – so very glad there was a way out of that prison she had found herself within. A den of sadists and a woman who very much enjoyed torturing her, saying it was all to discover just how she had made herself that which she had. _Sakura didn’t understand why anyone would want to sign themselves up to the same hell she was trapped in, but each to their own,_ or so she thought to herself bitterly _._ Naruto and Sasuke were long dead. There was no rescue coming for her, and Sakura was quite frankly tired. It was funny how ending up in such a situation had led to her figuring out a way to _die_ as she had so wished to for so very long. _What was that saying? In every cloud…_ She shook her head then, focusing back on the task at hand then – and what an important task it was.

Her so-called immortality was still dependent on her chakra – with nature chakra influencing her own network, she couldn’t really run out of chakra or so she had found after many attempts. Her seal ensured that much, boosting her own chakra recovery rate. Injuries to her body didn’t work. _But injuries to her chakra system itself might._ It was entirely possible to do such damage, despite it going against everything she had been taught and her natural instincts themselves, but she only had one chance to do it, and do it correctly. Otherwise they would notice she had figured out a way to slip chakra through the binds they had placed on her. Something which had taken a good ten years to figure out, or there abouts, with how little she knew of sealing. Those only sealed her ordinary chakra though, not the seal on her forehead, unlike normal restraints. _Normal restraints had crumbled to stone thanks to the sheer potency of the nature chakra which had been introduced to her body_. Though she had already known her chakra couldn’t be sealed through normal methods – she had tried to have someone seal it, and the end result had been them turned to stone. Her chakra still flowed naturally around her body, subsequently healing her. The seals just impaired her ability to access her chakra, hence why it had taken her so long to figure a way around them.

They were seals designed especially for her. Sakura hadn’t thought that possible, but that was why they had managed to capture her in the first place. She had gotten used to the status quo, become complacent in believing she couldn’t be killed and that she might as well be unmatched. _There were things worse than death._ Sakura knew that by then. _Torture was one of them._ More so when the body repaired itself meaning even the more brutal forms of the barbaric art wouldn’t kill her. She couldn’t count the number of times she had been used as a training dummy by the people who worked in that facility where she was being kept. The experiences had blurred into one.

Enough was enough though, and she gathered the chakra she had managed to slip through the seals, even as the door to her cell was opened and her most frequent visitor greeted her with that _smile_ she despised with every inch of her being. She really wanted to watch her expression turn as she realised her favourite toy was dying for real. _Escaping once and for all._ Her heart leapt at the thought, and despite many years of misery and denial, she felt the roaring flame of hope crackle to life within her chest. She would see Naruto and Sasuke soon, once she reached the Pure Lands, and she wouldn’t feel that pain which had tormented her for so very long. Even if her captors knew the Reanimation Technique, she would feel no pain. She rather doubted they would bother, given as how they were only interested in her thanks to the terrible, accidental modification of the Yin Seal she had made. So she was going to be free so very soon. She wouldn’t have to spend any more years trapped in that place. Her heart raced at the thought, and she allowed hope to feel her with an odd sort of happiness. _That had hardly been something she would have expected to feel at the prospect of her own death._ Well, all those years ago when Team Seven had been alive and well and she had been normal and mortal.

Her chakra built in her chest, and she had it rotating in her chakra core, forming little drill-headed tendrils even as she pushed past the instincts of _no-wrong-don’t-do-this-death-danger_.

“Ah, Sakura!” her main tormenter greeted, picking up a sharp scalpel then, freshly cleaned and ready for use once more. “I’ve been waiting all day to come and visit you!” she declared, skipping forwards then, implement in hand.

“So have I,” Sakura hissed, lifting her head then, a smile on her face as her chakra readied itself to go against every instinct in her body. “Fuck you, _bitch,_ ” she spat, feeling a vicious sense of satisfaction as pain ripped through every inch of her, her own chakra spearing through the thick walls of her chakra core. Her tormentor’s eyes widened, and Sakura felt her own chakra run rampant in her body, freed then from its coils and core, tearing through bone and tissue as it drained away. Tiredness hit her soon after the agony, though she was somewhat used to the latter by then – and that was going to be the last time she felt such pain. _Because she was going to die._ She could tell it even as blood welled up in her throat and she spat it out. Already her body tried to heal itself, draining her core of the little chakra it had left, and Sakura could only smile weakly, blood on her tongue as her vision darkened as the last few drops of chakra were taken from her ruined chakra system.

Chakra exhaustion wasn’t quite the method she thought she would die by, so long ago, but Sakura supposed she would take what she got. _The howl of rage on behalf of her tormentor was music to her ears._ She was so glad she had waited until that moment, despite the risk of being saved from the clutches of death she so longed for. _And they were just about embracing her right then and there._ Her eyes closed, the cold grip of death closing around her then for a single instant and then—

Nothing.

Darkness surrounded her, bleak and unfathomable, pain wracking through her – which Sakura thought odd because she was dead, and she hadn’t thought there would be the slightest bit of pain awaiting her _after_ she had died. It was why she had longed for that end, despite it being out of her feasible reach for such a long time.

Her body was so very heavy, eyelids feeling like they were stuck in molasses as they blinked open so very slowly. She felt drained and tired as she lay there, staring at the ceiling. _Staring at a ceiling._ She was dead. She was supposed to be dead. Chakra exhaustion had come for her and blissfully freed her from that place of nightmares and eternal suffering and she was free and dead. She was _dead_ too, and that was the crux of the matter.

She was supposed to be dead. Her heart was beating still – she could feel it in her chest, and fear hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. Fingers clenched in sheets— _bedsheets,_ she figured after a brief look around and the feeling of a pillow behind her head. She hadn’t slept on a bed in years. _She couldn’t really remember how long she had been a captive for._ Long enough for that baby to grow into her worst tormenter. _Just as her mother had been before her, and her mother before that…_

But _she_ wasn’t looming over her then, gloating about how they had somehow brought Sakura back from what was almost certainly a fatal injury. Her heart pounded in her chest, because gloating about her failed suicide attempt would be something _she_ would do.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she gained her bearings, eyes narrowing at the light which seeped in through the window and the drawn red curtains. The room was dark though, covered in heavy furnishings like thick rug and the tall dark wood dresser close by her bedside, set in the corner of that room. Sakura thought she might have been able to live with that, had everything not been that shade of red. _Red like spilled blood. Red like the colouring of her blood and innards mixed together._

She lurched out of bed, heart pounding then as she looked around the room wildly, taking a step towards the door and promptly falling flat on her face as the sheets tangled in her legs. _Red sheets. Bloodied sheets._ Her breath caught in her throat, and then she was back on her feet and stumbling out of that _red-red-red_ room. The door slammed behind her with a definitive click and thunk, and Sakura rested her back against it then, breathing heavily as she tried to find balance in a body which felt wrong and out of shape. Though she had been tortured and chained up in the same place for years, so it probably wasn’t too surprising she was out of shape in some ways— _but her seal had kept returning her to the state she had been, meaning she should have had some form of muscle…_

Sakura lifted her arm in front of her, nausea stirring in her gut as she stared at the wrong shade of skin colour. She had been pale before, but her skin had an olive undertone to it. Not the ruddy red undertones and the pale porcelain which she had more associated with the Uchiha and the high-class nobles who stayed inside more often than not to avoid tanning. _So why did she have those tones right then and there?_ Her breath caught in her throat again, and Sakura was vaguely aware she was on the verge of having a panic attack. She slid down the door then, clutching her knees to her chest as she tried to gather her wits about her. _Because she was supposed to be dead, supposed to be in the Pure Lands, but her heart was beating and nothing looked vaguely familiar._

“Deep breaths,” she whispered, her voice piercing the thick silence around her – one which had only been broken by her ragged gasps, not that she could hear them over the ringing in her ears. “Deep breaths…” she murmured again, comforting herself in the fact she was no longer in _that facility_ and she was no longer chained to _that plinth_. Her arms wrapped around herself, fingernails digging in until the pain hit her and she felt the familiar warm, sticky liquid rush over her skin then.

Startled, she drew back, staring as the blood trickled from those deep crescent gouges in her skin then, panic returning full force as the skin healed shut in seconds. _Like it had when she had still been under the influence of her tragically modified Yin Seal._ Her heart fluttered in her chest, fear rising in a crescendo as she stood up.

“No,” she muttered, _because if the Yin Seal worked still, then she was still alive._ “No,” she muttered again, _because she had died of chakra exhaustion and she was supposed to be in the Pure Lands doing whatever dead things did._ “No,” she muttered once more, _because nothing was making sense anymore._ Her feet moved then, moving her away from the _red-red-red-like-blood_ room, and she walked across the hallway overlooking some sort of hallway below. She needed to figure out where she was, _if she was in danger,_ and what exactly was going on. There was movement in the corner of her eye, and her head snapped around, heart in her throat as she caught sight of green eyes staring back at her.

Their hair was brown, unlike the white her own had turned after so many years of torment – the only thing the seal had allowed to change for some reason, the face undeniably female with that soft, heart-shaped face, delicate bow-shaped lips, thin, elegantly styled brows, and thick brown eyelashes which framed those big green eyes. She didn’t look like a threat, what with her small profile, and she looked as surprised as Sakura as they locked eyes. Taking a deep breath, she straightened up and took a step forwards before she stopped sharp. _Because the brunette did the same, and that was a mirror opposite her which should have reflected herself in that frame, given how she was standing, but she could only see that strange brown-haired lady._ Her breathing picked up again, a whimper and whine escaping her as she backpedalled sharply, eyes widening as she tumbled into _and over_ the railing. Hair flew up around her as she fell, too stunned to even attempt to flip herself over. _It was brown._ Her hair was brown, just like that stranger in the reflection where she should have been. She didn’t quite understand how that could be.

Her back slammed into the ground, the snap of bone somewhere audible, pain throbbed through her then, giving her a single snippet of clarity amidst the madness clawing at the eaves of her mind, but her forehead was already pulsing in such a familiar manner, and then that pain was fading and ebbing as her body healed. Sakura lay there, staring at the ceiling in shock, numbness not from injury making her simply lie there and stare blankly at a chandelier which didn’t resemble any she had seen before. Nothing was familiar, not the patterns of the designs on the walls, nor any of the decoration there. Sakura didn’t understand. “No, no, no, no, no,” she muttered, _because she was supposed to be dead and free._ But those walls around her were closing in, and she _couldn’t breathe,_ even as she vomited over herself, the taste hot and thick and making her gag as her stomach expelled whatever had been inside it. Her breath came in sharp pants, even after her stomach had finished expelling everything within it, and she curled up into a ball then, ignoring the horrid scent of her own sick permeating through the air. _She had lived in and smelt worse._

She stayed like that, shaking and sobbing, curled up in a ball until the light from the window faded. Tiredness pulled at her limbs then, and she pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the mess on the floor and all over her then as an owl hooted someplace off in the distance. _She needed to move to a more defensible and comfortable location if she wished to rest._ Shivers crawled down her spine as her bare feet stepped over the cool tile, hairs rising on end as she realised just how long she had lain there on the ground for. _And the fact no one had come across her lying like that, clearly having some sort of panic attack._ That and nobody had come after she had fallen – something that might have killed a normal person. She was anything but ordinary by that point. _After all, she was supposed to be something dead, yet there she was, seemingly alive, not in any form of Pure Lands, and in a body which wasn’t hers._ Sakura was reasonably sure she was alone in that place, but it never hurt to be careful. _She didn’t want to get captured and tortured again, and if anything or anyone found her to be a dead thing in a living body then they would probably want to know how she had achieved such a feat._ Sakura didn’t want to be an experiment or a victim of curiosity, or a victim of torture yet again.

Before, she had only been caught because she had grown complacent and had let her guard down. _She wouldn’t let her guard down ever again._ She had to be cautious, in this new, strange place, even if she was seemingly alone. Her feet were near silent as she edged her way into the entranceway. The sight of the door which ultimately had to lead outside, or so the cloudy window on either side suggested made something in her shrivel up in fear, and Sakura hurried up the stairs, eager to get out of what she was tentatively classing as _‘the danger zone’_.

The stairs were made from wood, heavy and dark, carpet runners set upon them, though Sakura was grateful they were a deep dark blue. _Like the ocean._ She hadn’t seen it in so long. Her feet made no noise atop the wonderful carpet, and so she padded up it carefully, ears straining to catch any sound of movement or breathing aside from her own. _But chakra wasn’t threading through her ears, enhancing her hearing capabilities as it should have been._ Sakura frowned at that, but she was managing just fine without her chakra right then and there. She could investigate the problem at a later late because something had definitely healed her after she had fallen before— _before she had started panicking._ But she was done panicking for now. She needed to find a safe place to hole up for the night, and it could hardly do that while she was panicking. Panicking could come second, and then could come research and monitoring of her strange new situation. _Because that hadn’t been her body in the mirror, nor had that been her brown hair attached to her head._ Something had changed, something had interfered, and now she _wasn’t_ dead like she was supposed to be.

Sakura wasn’t quite sure what to feel about that much – she wanted to see Naruto and Sasuke again. They wouldn’t hurt her, nor would Ino or another of her friends. They had all died before her, leaving her alone, afflicted with that dodgy seal of hers which had only brought misfortune after misfortune upon her. She wanted to see them all again.

Yet her cursed seal was probably still in place, if the incident earlier was anything to go by. Sakura swallowed, throat feeling dry then, but she didn’t particularly care too much as she stumbled forwards, finding the first door which didn’t lead to a lounge area or a study. She hadn’t found a single trap as of yet, proving it likely wasn’t the house of a shinobi, but Sakura wasn’t about to let her guard down. _The last time she had done that she had been captured and tortured._ Sakura didn’t want that again, and so she hesitantly peered around the room there, heart leaping as she spied the not-red bedding on the large bed in the room and the overly large wardrobe. _Safe,_ her instincts whispered, and Sakura wasted no time in carefully checking the area for possible traps or enemies hiding in the shadows before she hauled the blankets and pillows from the bed, and threw open the wardrobe. There were only a few clothes within, and she moved them to one side swiftly as she set up her bed there.

It was cosy in there, more so when she closed the wardrobe doors, and most importantly _nothing was red._ Rather than cloistering, the wardrobe walls felt protecting and comforting. They weren’t about to close in, and even if they did she could escape them easily enough. It wasn’t like there was a lock on the wardrobe, not even from the inside. Though that meant anyone could get to her – she would have some warning, because the wardrobe didn’t quite have solid doors for the most part – there were gaps where patterns of trees had been carved. She would be able to see a flash of movement before any sort of attack. Or so she hoped, as she curled up and pulled a forest green blanket to cover up her shaking body. _She didn’t understand why or how she was there._ But one thing Sakura knew for certain was that she would never be captured again. She refused to be tormented again, and she knew she was the only one she could rely upon to stop that.


	2. The Aftermath is Never Pretty

The world hadn’t changed by the time she woke up, and Sakura was infinitely grateful for that. There was still a cupboard surrounding her, thick wood blocking out the outside world as best it could, hiding her from any possible threats. There was still a green blanket over her, and when Sakura breathed in she could smell the scent which reminded her of the outdoors lingering upon it. _She hadn’t smelt that in a long time so she couldn’t be entirely sure of the scent – but it didn’t smell of blood and rust and her prison, so Sakura was as happy as she could be._

Part of her dreaded she was somehow still dreaming – that she would wake up to that smiling face and that voice which purred out her name as knives and other implements came out to play. Her toes clenched, and she remembered the crunch of bone, the pain, and the tugging as her toes were crushed between pliers and pried from her foot one by one. _They were still there and whole._ Sakura shivered at the memory, hands grasping at her toes then as she sucked in a shaky breath. _‘This is all in the name of science,’_ the all too familiar voice purred, and Sakura felt herself shake. The skin wasn’t pink and sensitive, she assured herself, grounding her thoughts within the facts presented before her. They hadn’t only recently regrown. They hadn’t been pried off once more, as they had so many times before. She supposed the nightmare she had just woken up from was something to blame those vivid thoughts and memories on. Nothing good ever happened once she woke from a nightmare, no matter if she was suddenly free from that place of hell and torment. _That fact still stood._

A soft whimper escaped her, even as she buried her head in her knees and prayed this was no dream which she would suddenly wake up from. Even if it wasn’t death and the Pure Lands, it wasn’t her prison, which meant it was better. She had escaped from their clutches, and she was free. That had to be all which mattered.

_‘You’ll never be free of us, Sa-ku-ra,’_ the voice purred, and she sat up suddenly, skin feeling as though there were ants crawling all over it, and she hurried out of her wardrobe then, crouching down as she surveyed the room around her with cautious eyes. _There were no threats._ Her breathing was the only sound she could hear amidst the eerie stillness which was broken as the sound of a bird’s trill pierced the air. It came from outside, beyond where the light seeped in through the light curtains, and she held her breath for a moment as she listened and watched that light. The same light she had seen yesterday, but hadn’t paid much attention to in her frantic panic.

She hadn’t seen light in so long. It almost looked foreign and far too bright to her tired eyes as she stared at that window, heart beating in her chest rapidly as she edged towards the light. Part of her wondered if it would burn her, or if she wouldn’t feel the heat because it was nothing but an illusion. But she did feel the warmth on her skin, squinting at the brightness of the world outside, breath catching in her throat at the sight of the sea on the horizon.

Waves sparkled in the light, and Sakura could almost taste the salt on the imaginary breeze as she stared at the roiling waves of the sea. Her hand landed against the glass, part of her longing to run down to the sea, but she didn’t know what sort of danger lurked outside. She flinched back then, staring at the faint brown-haired reflection she could see in that glass, turning away from the window then, stomach twisting at the sight of the face which wasn’t hers.

There was no illusion set upon her right then and there. Sakura wasn’t entirely certain if she remembered how to do such a thing. It had been a long while since she had used one, confident in her own strength and skills as she once had been. There had been no need to hide or infiltrate anywhere or anything. Her arms wrapped around herself, and she glared at her brown locks then. _Body snatcher,_ something whispered in the depths of her mind, and so she decided the first order of business was tying her hair back. There was only one problem – she knew where nothing in that house was, and she had the terrible feeling, as she opened draw after empty draw of the dresser, that any sort of hair ties or other beautifying equipment would be in that room she had first awoken in.

That red room – the same room which probably belonged to the body she was in. The same room which would belong to her technically, given how she was there and seemingly breathing in that body. Her hands shook, growing steadily more shaky as the search of another room yielded nothing else, and silently she weighed up her discomfort. There was no knife available to cut her hair, and even if there was, bits would only end up in her vision, too short to be out of the way, and she didn’t particularly want to shave her hair off. _It would be terribly itchy growing back and Sakura didn’t think she was comfortable being bald or near enough._ She was still female at heart, and she was rather attached to having hair. A lot of the people in the paintings had long hair too – and Sakura supposed that was another mark for keeping her hair there long, yet tied back and out of the way. She wanted to blend in should she meet anyone else.

So the momentary terror and discomfort didn’t outweigh the need for a hair tie of some description, which was how she found herself standing before the door to that room, sucking in deep breaths as she tried to gather any vestiges of courage she had. Shaking fingers curled around the door handle, and Sakura opened the door, stomach twisting as she spied that red colour. _She didn’t like red anymore. Never again, not after all the blood and pain._ That colouring brought up too many painful memories, and Sakura slammed the door shut, falling to her knees then, burying her face in her hands and whimpering. _Pathetic,_ part of her which sounded eerily like her tormentor whispered amidst the roiling terror in her mind. _Defeated by a room,_ another part whispered, stressing the final word. Sakura stared at her feet, ashamed and miserable at the revelation. _Look at what’s become of the great and mighty Haruno Sakura…_ Her hands curled into fists, nails cutting into skin, drawing blood and another whimper of pain as the red sticky liquid leaked down her arm, skin sealing shut only moments later, taking away the slight pain soon after – the blood on her skin and nails the only evidence of what had happened.

“It is only a room,” she whispered. _Her voice sounded strange in ways she couldn’t quite understand._ Sakura didn’t think it mattered much in that instant, what with the more pressing issue of trying to get those _wrong_ brown locks out of sight and out of mind. She would be able to deal with everything else once she had managed to get that done. “It is only a room,” she decided then, rising slowly to her feet, ignoring the mocking whispers on the eaves of her mind as her legs trembled somewhat. “And it is not _that_ room,” she reminded, steeling her nerves as she put her hand on that door handle once more. “And I do not need to stay in it…” she trailed off, the spoken words reassuring her once more, jerking the door open, setting eyes on the dresser _surrounded by that horrible red colour which made her stomach churn and painful memories claw up from the depths of her mind she had tried to sink them to._ She moved quickly, in spite of her shaking hands, pulling open what she thought to be the likeliest of drawers, relief seeping through her as she spied the leather thong. Her fingers closed around it, and, prize in hand, she fled from the room, slamming the door shut behind her, breathing heavy as the heavy wooden door closed with a click.

There was no more red, only the wooden panelling which decorated the corridor in all its glossed glory. It reminded her somewhat of the wardrobe she had slept in, and the wardrobe was a designated safe spot in that large house. Sakura wondered whether she ought to call it a mansion, what with how large it was seeming to be. She had yet to explore all the rooms, determine its safety and defensibility in case of an attack, or even lay some basic traps. _Not that she had any material with which to lay traps with._ But she hoped to find something. _And ideally never have to go in that red room ever again._ She didn’t like the red, no matter how she had once worn that colour. _‘And you wore it so very well,’_ her tormenter purred in her ear, and Sakura ran then, retracing her steps from earlier, leather thong in hand and ready for use as she made her way back to her designated safe spot.

The walls of that room were a forest green, vibrant and _not red_ which made them soothing to her eyes, and she snuggled back up inside the comforting wooden walls, only fiddling about with her hair then. Her hands moved, nimble fingers twisting that strange hair of hers into a simple braid. One of the few she could just about remember still after everything. Her hands shook at the memories, but the tie was already in her hair, securing those unfamiliar brown locks as out of sight of her immediate vision as they could be. She curled up in her blankets then, letting herself snuggle in the warmth of the odd nest bed she had made in that safe wardrobe. She liked being warm. She had been cold for too long. _Exposed for too long._ Sakura shuddered at the memory, grateful she was clothed – even if it was a long, flowy, impractical dress she was wearing. She resolved to change clothes at the earliest opportunity, or at the very least wash them, what with how they were somewhat splattered with dried vomit.

Her nose wrinkled, a reminder that _scent would give her away_ ringing in her brain then, and she decided to scout the rest of her new apparent accommodations. She wasn’t probably as hungry as she should have been, per say, but she could feel the beginnings of that gnawing hunger just about scraping in her stomach. _The kitchen, food, and the bathroom._ Those were what she needed to find. _Perhaps the boiler, or the boiler room too, given how she would want hot water for her bath._ After that would come everything else. _Like traps and defences and then she would begin figuring things out._ Sakura nodded to herself, wondering how long she had been snuggled in those warm, comforting blankets. _Probably too long._ She bit her lip, reluctantly sliding out from the warmth and the blanketing sensation of safety she felt from that wardrobe and that room she had already spent a night in.

She slipped from the safe room then, bare feet padding against the mostly wooden floor. The first floor was mainly wood, or so she was discovering as she explored. There were six bedrooms, including the red room, and three bathrooms with plumbing which thankfully worked. _A decent level of technology and plumbing and general hygiene or so it seemed._ The water was cold, even from the hot tap, meaning there was likely a boiler room somewhere, but it evidently wasn’t automated or electronic. Sakura supposed in some ways that made things simpler – she couldn’t really remember how to operate a normal one – but a wood fire burner type _or whatever it was technically called…_ That, she would be able to use, even if it meant she would have to remember to set a fire every time she wanted a hot bath.

The lights in that place, aside from the ones in the bedroom, were always seemingly on, and they grew brighter as evening came – or so she was discovering, having not paid much attention the evening before. _She couldn’t really remember the evening prior all that well._ She made her way downstairs, hairs on end as she walked through the entrance hall – _the danger zone where the door which led to the outside was._ She all but sprinted further into the house, nervousness rising at the eerie silence which engulfed her. Sakura supposed she would have to get used to that much, what with her seeming to be the only one living there for the time being. She didn’t think she wanted that to change – if there were indeed others out there. Sakura was presuming that much, what with all the portraits which had been in the house, depicting other people whom she didn’t recognise in the slightest.

_She still didn’t understand how or why she was there._ The only thing which mattered was ensuring she was safe and secure. Then, and only then could she worry about how far away she had managed to get from her tormentors. _Though she was fairly sure she was pretty far away, what with how she vaguely remembered dying._ Sakura shook her head, padding across the tile which seemed to be the predominant flooring type on the ground floor. _And likely the floor beneath it, if the stairs leading downwards were anything indicative._ She didn’t think the kitchens would be down there, so she ignored them for the time being, making a mental note of where they were in that house. The kitchens, or so she discovered, were more towards the back of the house, with a view out into the garden on the other end of her new residence. Ground seemed to give way to the sea much too suddenly, and Sakura could only presume there was some kind of cliff edge there, fenced off as it seemingly was.

Food was thankfully in stock in the kitchen painted with creams, the tiles around the kitchen area made black for a nice contrast, and Sakura grabbed a hold of some dried meats, bread, and some cheese by the looks of it, seating herself on one of the granite countertops and making short work of the meal she had grabbed, eyes darting around all the while as she ate. Part of her was terrified of anyone suddenly appearing, especially when she was unarmed _and hadn’t used her chakra in years._ Well aside from the whole attempted suicide in which she had thought she had managed to damage her chakra system beyond repair. _But her Yin Seal still worked, she was alive, and she didn’t understand anything anymore, not even her own body._ But Sakura didn’t want to think on that. Water from the taps was cool, clean, and fresh, washing down her meal, and Sakura got straight back to business with that, hunger sated and dealt with meaning it was time for the next item on her self-made agenda.

She needed to find whatever heated water. There was a hot tap, meaning there had to be a way of heating up water, and Sakura was going to find it, she knew. She didn’t want to bathe in cold water. _She didn’t want a bucket of cold water to occasionally be thrown over her._ The water had to be hot, and so Sakura made her way through all the rooms on that particular floor, disappointment filling her when all she found were parlour rooms, dining rooms, offices, and other spaces for what she assumed to be general living. _The house was far larger than she had originally thought._ Her stomach stirred at that, nausea gripping at her for some reason. _Because she knew nothing about the body she was inhabiting. The body which was apparently hers now. The body which might protect her from her tormentors, different as it was from her last. The body which didn’t feel like her own thanks to that very same reason._

“Downstairs,” she muttered, the word cutting off that train of thoughts before it could roll into another station in her mind. Survival was more important than the matter of that body. Sakura thought she needed warm water for survival. _She hardly wanted to catch anything or impair herself with illness from constantly bathing in cold water._ She didn’t know the local area, nor the types of illness which would be commonplace there, or if she had immunity to some of them already thanks to that body.

The stairs which led downstairs, to a set of corridors which were still above ground – the house seemingly built on different terrain levels. The lights in that place seemed to be of a warmer glow than the colder lighting of the main part of the house there, a few windows outside letting in the glow from the sun low on the horizon. There were no shadows, lights carefully positioned to ensure there were no blind spots in that corridor which made her wonder if the place belonged to shinobi. Though that didn’t mean she wasn’t careful when opening the doors, always so very careful of where enemies could lurk or traps could be laid.

She found the correct room on her first try in that odd section of the house – the room closest to the stairs on the right hand side, opposite to the side the windows were all situated on. It was a large room, with a fair number of pipes, but the lights were still very bright and there were still no enemies in sight. _She was starting to get fully accustomed to the idea that she was blissfully alone in that place, and she was so very grateful for that fact._ She didn’t know what she would’ve done, had she suddenly met anyone who she was supposed to know, or one of the people whose portraits had been painted and hung throughout that house.

Shaking her head, Sakura put that horrible imaginary situation to one side and gathered the wood logs and other things she knew she would need, sweeping away the ash which had been left there from the last use of that place into the metal bucket placed by the side of where she presumed the wood was meant to go. _The dead ash and the way there were no flammable materials situated there was a bit of a giveaway._ Matches had kindly been left there, and there were a few boxes of them, meaning she would have many attempts to get a fire going before she had to worry about how to get more. _Something she was thankful for._ She didn’t want to go near the front door for a while yet.

Sakura wasn’t sure if she would ever want to venture there or beyond for a long while.

**Author's Note:**

> SPORADIC UPDATES T_T


End file.
